Help! I Wrote to Prudie for Advice and Dan Kois Answered.
The author answers your letters.
This special edition is part of our Guest Prudie series, where we ask smart, thoughtful people to step in as Prudie for the day and give you advice.
Today’s columnist is author (and Slate writer!) Dan Kois. Dan’s most recent novel is Hampton Heights: One Harrowing Night in the Most Haunted Neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which the New York Times recently called “a comic, gently spooky ’80s tale of boyhood, community and Burger King.”
We asked Kois to weigh in on a new trick-or-treating tradition, withering memorials, and a conversation about death:
Dear Prudence,
I live in a rural New England town, on a mile-long dirt road with about 12 houses on it. Four of the houses have children living in them, varying in age from 6 to 14. We are friendly with all of our neighbors, but not super close with anyone. Before the pandemic, trick-or-treating in our town was mainly held “downtown.” Someone would organize a parade and kids would go door-to-door in that much more densely populated part of town. As such, the first four years in our house brought us no trick-or-treaters. I was honestly relieved, as I work with kids all day, and as a child-free person by choice, the last thing I want is to go home and have to entertain more kids well into the evening.
When the pandemic hit, some of the parents on our street decided to organize a “trunk-or-treat” along our road so kids could do socially-distanced trick-or-treating. I thought the idea was sweet, and since I didn’t want to be “that grumpy neighbor,” I put together some goody bags and made a small display at the end of our driveway with decorations and lights, as did a majority of the houses on our road. Each subsequent year, as the invitations to “join in” have gotten more elaborate, I’ve felt obligated to provide better and better goodies and displays.
Now that there has been a return to “normalcy,” and this event has become a yearly tradition, I am finding myself mentally and financially tapped out. I feel like these families are now taking advantage of the street’s generosity, especially knowing that a very robust trick-or-treating opportunity has returned to the center of town. I’m anticipating the yearly postcard “inviting” me to provide for this event, and I’m wondering if I should just put a random bowl out with some candy, or if I should prime the families and tell them that I’m not going to be able to do the big thing this year? I fear the former will come off as passive-aggressive, but I also want to send a subtle message that I’m just not into it anymore.
—Hallow-ver It
Dear Hallow-ver It,
You are definitely Hallow-verthinking this question. Any obligation you are feeling to provide “better” treats or Halloween decorations is self-imposed. You should participate or not participate in this budding tradition to whatever extent you feel comfortable. A bowl of random-ass candy? Fine. A few decorations? Great. A note saying you unfortunately can’t join in this year? Sure. No one will care at anything near the level you’re worried they will.
If it was me? I’d just put out some candy! No law says you have to like children, or that you should be forced to interact with kids in the evening after spending the day working with children. There’s not even a law that requires you to be a good neighbor! But being a good neighbor is a pleasant thing to do, and it can yield dividends down the road—when you need help, or when a crisis hits, you’ll be glad you made even small gestures towards neighborliness. Putting out the same Halloween decorations you put out last year, and a bowl of candy, is a nearly effort-free way to participate in the life of your street.
I’m curious why this once-a-year, designedly low-impact event has exhausted you so. I suspect it has something to do with the way you view the parents who are organizing it. “I feel like these families are now taking advantage of the street’s generosity,” you write, but do you think the parents’ motivation in organizing this event is … a fevered desire to make sure their children get great candy? No! Normal parents don’t care what candy their child gets. Indeed, most parents wish their children got less candy on Halloween, but put up with it because the ancillary rewards (their children’s joy, the fun of seeing little kids in cute costumes, kindling of community feeling) are worth it.
These parents are organizing this event not because they’re ravenous for your candy but because it’s nice to celebrate this funny holiday in your own neighborhood, alongside the people who live near you. It’s fun to see the neighbor kids’ outfits, and to have a chance, maybe, to visit with your neighbors, before everyone heads downtown. You don’t have to participate, but don’t ascribe their perfectly nice, nascent tradition to some nefarious motive.
Over the coming year, you might consider finding a way to become a little more engaged in your immediate community. I’m not saying you need to host weekly play sessions in your yard. But what about a dinner party some spring evening? What about attending a neighborhood board meeting, organizing a neighborhood cleanup, or advocating for your street at the town council? Truly getting to know your neighbors might make you feel better about the place where you live, and about your place in it.
—Prudie, amiably
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Dear Prudence,
About 10 years ago, a terrible car crash, in which several children were killed, occurred just outside my house. This was well before I moved in. There is a little shrine in my yard close to the spot where the people died. There are dried and fake flowers, sometimes small notes. I have at least once seen the family come to refresh the shrine, but wouldn’t recognize them if I saw them again.
However, for the past several years, nobody has come. The flowers are faded and raggedy, a glass vase is filled with dried sticks, and the wire holding it all together has come loose. I don’t want to disrespect the dead and their family, or get myself cursed by angry ghosts, but at what point can I dispose of the shrine, and how can I do it respectfully? Maybe I can plant a beautiful flowerbed there instead?
—The Crypt Keeper
Dear Keeper,
It’s very thoughtful of you to want to protect the feelings of the family involved, and very wise of you to want to avoid becoming accursed by vengeful spirits. I can understand why you’d want to remove the shrine. It’s a grim reminder of an event that predates your own life in this home, and at this point, something of an eyesore. And yet, somewhere out there, there are people for whom this corner of your yard is a sacred, if desperately sad, place, and given the pain those people have been through, it’s hard to imagine putting them through more by tossing away their mementos of their lost loved ones.
If the family was still refreshing the shrine, I’d feel you’d be duty-bound by the rules of a civil society to allow them to do so. (For the same reason, I feel that people who own property that includes old gravesites should endeavor to protect those spots.) Perhaps you could pull them aside the next time they visited and ask them about a more permanent marker, like a small stone or a tree, that you could help them install on the space.
But given the circumstances, I think it’s entirely fine for you to clear up that space. I find your suggestion of planting a special flowerbed there quite moving. You might consider chrysanthemums or even forget-me-nots, if they’re suitable for the spot and your climate. Any spirits who remain could only be honored and appreciative of such a gesture, and I’m sure the family would be, too.
—Prudie, memorably
Please keep questions short (150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication.
Dear Prudence,
My grandmother “Rose” passed at the age of 97. The funeral was yesterday. My son, “Xavier,” who’s almost 4, came with us to the service, and while it’s not exactly something I wanted to do, I spoke with him about death and how we wouldn’t see his great-grandmother anymore. He was sad, but also calm about it in a way that’s unusual for him. I wasn’t sure if he really understood what death was, so I probed about it a bit, and his answers troubled me.
He gave what is basically a Malthusian argument. After all, he said, people have babies all the time, and my wife is currently pregnant—he knows a baby’s coming to our house. But if people keep having babies and nobody “leaves,” then there won’t be enough food, housing, or clothes for everyone as more and more people live on Earth. So clearly some people have to die. He’s sad he won’t see Grammy anymore, but she was the oldest person he knew, so it makes sense it was her turn next.
None of that is wrong exactly, but it’s also kind of chilling, isn’t it? Or maybe it’s more normal than I think. Is this something I have to worry about?
—Mortal Peril
Dear Mortal,
I’m sorry for the loss of your grandmother, and I’m glad you got to have such a long time with her. You do not need to worry about Xavier. Kids respond to death in all kinds of different ways, and this “logical” processing of a funeral is totally fine. It’s a developmentally appropriate, superficial explanation of death that gets the most important facts right: that his great-grandmother is gone, and that it’s a normal part of life, even if it’s sad. He sounds like a child who likes to think through questions and find answers that make sense to him.
It’s up to you how deep you want to go into it. His understanding is going to remain surface-level for many years, and trying to explain to him why Rev. Malthus’ ideas remain hotly debated by philosophers, economists, and demographers to this day probably won’t get you very far. But let me assure you that your son is not secretly evil, like Damien from The Omen. He’s just a kid figuring out the world.
—Prudie, realistically
When Andrew Sean Greer Was Guest Prudie
My husband is very, very smart. He graduated from an Ivy League college, has published in academic journals in multiple fields, and achieved success in a competitive field while still in his 20s. That is all great, but what I like best about him is that he always wore his intelligence lightly. He prefers to ask questions than to expound, answers questions clearly and simply without being patronizing, and is always looking to find people smarter or more knowledgeable than him—he has no desire to be “the smartest guy in the room.” But that has changed in one specific context.
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